Theatre on the Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival draws thousands of alternative theatre
groups to the Scottish capitol every year for a month-long celebration
of the arts. From the more than 500 eligible productions, less than 20
are honored annually with the prestigious Fringe First award.

Under the direction of Camille Cettina ‘01, a group of young
women from the Mulberry School—an arts-based high school of
predominantly Bengali girls from London’s poorest borough—took home top
honors this August. Working with iconic British playwright Fin Kennedy,
the girls stunned audiences with The Unraveling, an original play about a dying mother who asks her daughters to weave her a story out of cloth.

Cettina, who studied theatre during her time at Pomona, joined the
Mulberry theatre program three years ago as an artist-in-residence.
Here’s what Camille had to say about mixing arts and education at the
Mulberry School, and the girls’ remarkable showing in Edinburgh.

What is the Mulberry School?

Mulberry is a public school, and
it’s in the lowest income borough in the UK. But it’s also an arts
specialist school…like a magnet school, but they don’t recruit just
arts kids. We have a lot of artists-in-residence—we have a playwright,
a filmmaker, a radio person—and they just have a real legacy for using
artists-in-residence in an interesting way.

Part of our mission at the Mulberry Theatre Company is doing
professional-level work with students through workshops, through
special productions and using theatre to support the curriculum. We do
a lot of collaboration with other departments and areas to use arts to
promote confidence, creativity, leadership and learning.

How has arts education benefited the students at Mulberry School?

It’s
really amazing. There’s one student who spent a lot of time sitting
outside of the head’s office in trouble. Her teachers would never
expect her to get involved in something like this. She’s been
dedicated, showing up, going to rehearsal, and gained this incredible
confidence. I think it’s confidence not just about performing, but it’s
confidence that she takes into other classes. She may not be an actor
in the future, but she’s gained so many skills and so much confidence
through working on this project. These students aren’t necessarily
going to become theatre artists, but the impact that that work has had
on their lives is something that they won’t forget.

Schools get so bogged down and art is often the first thing
that gets cut, yet you can map the impact that art has on these
children. These are the kinds of opportunities that really change
lives.

How did the idea for the play come about?

Our process is
unconventional in that we work with a playwright-in-residence, Fin
Kennedy, who works with the girls in January to develop ideas. Part of
our mission is to ask them what they want to say and see what we can
say to the world that they don’t hear from this particular community.
These are predominantly Bengali women…a voice that is really
underrepresented. This year, these girls really didn’t want to do a
play about being Bengali women in east London; they wanted it to just
be about life and stories and not just about their culture, which was
great.

What was the experience at the Edinburgh Festival like for you and your students?

The
most amazing moment for me in Edinburgh was when we won the Fringe
First, which is an award given by The Scotsman [newspaper] just for
plays that premiere at the Fringe. They’re these girls who are high
schoolers from the lowest-income borough in London who have treated
this show as their voice, and they’re getting this award that’s given
to professionals from around the world. They earned it, and that was
really amazing.

People were just really impressed and really moved. Something
that’s really interesting about working with students as opposed to
professionals is that there’s this real honesty and raw energy in the
students’ performances. There’s something about the students being
there. They’re on stage and they’re just putting their hearts out
there. And I think that’s what people really respond to. Not only is it
a well-crafted play, but there’s this incredible truth and honesty in
their performances, and you can’t help but respond to that as an
audience member.

How did you experience at Pomona impact the work that you’ve been doing at The Mulberry School and other theatre companies?

Working
with [Professor of Theatre Tom Leabhart] and other teachers just hugely
influenced the direction that I took as an artist. It’s not just about
being a theatre artist; it’s being a theatre artist in the world around
you. And I think that did shape me for the work that I’m doing now as a
professional actor/director and also working in education. One of the
things that I bring as an artist-in-residence is that when I work with
students, I don’t expect less of them because they are teenagers. I
think that’s true of the work at Pomona. That respect I received as a
student, that’s something that I really take into the work that I’m
doing.